Leveraging Human Capital (HRM)
Question 3
Performance management is significant in raising performance in an organization. It is a process that ensures the predetermined activities and outputs are in line with organizational objectives and goals. Performance management is aimed at facilitating effective and efficient management of activities in an organization. Performance management entails the outcomes achieved by the team or individuals’ contribution toward the accomplishment of organizational strategic objectives. Therefore, performance management considers results and behaviors in an organization.
Performance management promotes organizational effectiveness through bring into line individual employees, teams, and strategic goals. It promotes a continuous performance enhancement process by setting individual employee and team goals that meet an organizational strategic goal. Performance management reviews and assesses performance and promotes employee training, knowledge development, abilities, and skills development. Performance management hugely depends on goal setting between teams, individuals, and organizational strategic goals. Goal setting has a significant effect on organizational performance. Performance management observes psychological principles.
There are there primary functions of performance appraisal in organizations. Performance appraisal provides the management with data for future decisions, offers adequate feedback on each employee’s performance, and acts as the basis for altering behaviors to achieve effective work habits. The concept of performance management is a great concern in management studies. The main objective of performance appraisal is to measure and improve employee performance to increase their future contribution to the organization. However, the other roles of performance appraisal are feedback provision, improvement of communication, clarification of employee duties and responsibilities, understanding of training requirements, and identification of rewarding employee basis.
The need for feedback provision necessities organizations to implement a performance appraisal system. Performance appraisal enables employees to have a clear understanding of how well each did during the year and how the individual performance can be enhanced in the future. On this basis, performance appraisal serves as the basis for ensuring future managerial expectations are communicated to all employees.
Performance appraisal is of significance to the employee promotion process. Most commonly, management experience difficulties when making promotion decisions. In every organization, employees want to be ahead. It creates a managerial problem on the best promotion basis. Through performance appraisal, it is easier for management to make the best promotion decisions. It ensures capable employees fill all vacant positions in an organization. It assists the management in generating the best employee promotional programs. Moreover, every employee has a craving for promotion but also want to avoid demotion and dismissal. Performance appraisal can help the management in both demotion and dismissal of inefficient employees. Most talented employees are retained through performance appraisal in cases where an organization wants to downsize.
Performance appraisal helps in formulating employee compensation packages. It provides useful performance data to be applied in a merit rating. Through performance appraisal, employees are worthily compensated in accordance with their performance. Employee compensation packages such as high salary, bonus, allowances, prerequisites, and extra benefits are offered on a merit basis. The compensation criteria are supposed to be on merit instead of a job position. Performance appraisal offers the basis for compensation employees according to how they have achieved the set objectives. Moreover, it enables management to serve to understand and authorize selection procedures. The management weakness and strengths of the organizational selection procedures are the ability to make changes in relevant changes through performance appraisal.
Performance appraisal acts as an employee motivational tool. Evaluation of each employee’s performance is identified through his or her efficiency in accomplishing the targets. Employees are motivated for either better job position or performance improvement through performance appraisal. It also serves as a tool for the identification and counseling of non-performers by enabling mangers to confront them. Not all employees in an organization meet the set standards; performance appraisal facilitates the identification and counseling of such employees.
Furthermore, performance appraisal facilitates effective communication in an organization. It is important to have effective communication between employees, management, and owners. Performance appraisal facilitates effective communication through understanding and acceptance of subordinate employee skills, creating confidence and trust between subordinates and management, developing work spirit, boosting employee morale, and maintaining congenial and cordial labor-management relationships.
Finally, performance appraisal is of plays a role in the enhancement of employee development. It allows management and superiors to frame suitable employee training programs and policies. Performance management facilitates the evaluation of employee weaknesses and strengths to allocate new jobs to efficient employees. I enable the formulation of future employee development programs.
In addition to performance appraisal, their several tools that are used to raise individual employees’ performance. Some examples of the tools are key performance indicators(KPIs)and metrics, reward recognition programs, 360-degree feedback, and personal development plans (PDP).
A personal development plan (PDP) is also known as either an individual development plan or a personal enterprise plan. A PDP has a statement that comprises several elements such as individual goals, competencies (strengths), training level, education, and stages to reveal how the plan will be achieved. Managers make PDP a mandatory tool before the yearly performance appraisals. It enables an individual to map the success path, arrives at better decisions, and avoid backward steps. Also, a plan facilitates the identification of weaknesses and suitable strategies to avoid them. PDD is reflecting an awareness of employee performance as well as setting future performance goals and actions to promote individual development. PDP allows individuals to set out how to grow and relevant growth actions.
Reward and recognition programs- employees are demotivated when they have a sense of unrecognized performance and unrewarded performance. Therefore, organizations need to have reward and recognition management system programs. The tool provides a mechanism for celebration and rewarding high performing employees in an organization. Employee morale can either be maintained or boosted through the provision of monetary and nonmonetary rewards such as can bonuses and promotions.
KPIs offer a method to evaluate the performance of individuals projects, business units, and organizations with respect to the strategic goals. The primary objective of KPIs is to make better decisions through individual performance data. Performance measurement is beneficial in raising individual employee performance.
Question 4
In an organization, conflict is bad news and should be avoided by people at all costs. In organizations, there are various types of conflicts. Conflicts tend to happen either between individuals or groups. Conflicts between individuals involve colleagues, employees, and managers. The conflict between groups involves teams and large groups of employees and management (Acas, 2006, p5-8).
Conflicts between individuals
The conflict between colleagues exists when one employee has a concern with another one at the workplace. A person may be angry with others in an organization. There could be personality clashes at the workplace, strong opinion differences, and outside work personal issues overspill—such conflict results in harassment and bullying accusations. Conflict can exist between a worker and a manager. A worker can feel that the managerial style is either weak or authoritarian and favoring colleges when assigning duties—such conflict results in poor employee conflict.
Conflict between groups
Conflict can occur between teams where teamwork is complex. In group work, there are delicate personality and work responsibilities balances. Such conflict happens due to workmates rivalry, disagreements about shared values and goals, and intergroup resentment. The conflict between management and employee is commonly characterized by mentality difference. There could be general resentment, poor morale, and low motivation levels.
Intergroup conflict can lead to positive outcomes due to creative tensions. However, intergroup conflict causes destruction when it hinders intergroup cooperation in an organization. The conflict is destructive whenever it leads to loss of competition and lower outcome compromise. Employee’s interpersonal conflicts are a major cause of workplace stressors, which leads to the decline of individual worker productivity. Interpersonal conflict causes workplace harassment, depression, anxiety, low job satisfaction levels, and physical symptoms.
Generally, intergroup and interpersonal conflicts have more disadvantages than advantages in organizations. Conflicts result in productivity decline, mental health concerns, and violence. Conflict shifts the attention of an organization from a concentration of primary goals to solving conflicts. Also, employee attention is shifted to focusing on achieving goals in raising their respective opinions about the situation. Dissatisfied employees can become increasingly dissatisfied and opt to resign from their respective job positions. The ongoing conflicts can cause an organization to lose access to suitable resources, donors, and even money. The negative outcomes of conflict in an organization justify why it should be avoided at all costs.
There is a direct connection between conflict and organizational performance. Organizational performance entails actual results (objectives and goals) with respect to anticipated outputs. Most commonly, in an organization, conflict relates to teams or project goals. Workplace conflict affects performance by hindering the best work practices. Organizational performance is hurt where the conflict makes interdependent activities to be carried out in unsuitable manners.
When there is a low conflict level in an organization, there is opinion mutuality, and employees agree with each other about certain issues. Employees do not look for new ideas because stakeholders are not adaptive to workplace problems. As a result, overall organization performance tends to decline. Employees do not agree with each other at low when the level of conflict in an organization is high. Usually, there is no cooperation and collaboration in employee activities and behavior. Cooperation and collaboration are essential elements in almost all organizations. Cooperation unites individual employees between themselves and the management. Organizational goals and objectives are achieved through cooperation between all employees and owners or managers. Lack of discipline leads to a decline in performance in an organization. People disagree with each other, in an instance where optimum conflict level leading to the generation of new ideas. Employees have varied thinking abilities, and optimum conflict creates a conductive creative environment.
Workplace relationships are not always smooth when people work as either individuals or groups. Conflict arises in an organization between workmates or the management. Disagreements arise due to differences in interpretations, behavioral expectations, and opinions. Moreover, there could be competition and value protection differences, which results in conflicts. Conflict is disadvantageous when it; hinders cooperation, undermines self-morale, widens difference gaps, shifts attention from core activities, and causes harmful behaviors. However, conflict is constructive when; solves problems, clarifies major issues and problems, allows employees to resolve vital issues, builds cooperation, and assists employees in understanding as well as developing their skills. In this case, conflict leads to the improvement of organizational performance.
Conflict management resolution is important in ensuring the smooth running of activities in an organization. Several techniques can be applied to resolving conflicts in an organization. The technique includes; conflict resolution training, communication skills training, implementation of team building activities, conflict leadership training, participation encouragement, and treating employees equally.
Conflict resolution training- in organizations reduces the negative effects. The training equips employees with skills that are beneficial in resolving conflicts throughout their lives. It offers employees with confidence and ability to resolve both personal and professional conflict. Moreover, the training enables employees to address minor conflicts before they become distractions.
Communication skill training- increase the ability of employees to communicate effectively with different individuals and management. It enables employees to manage problems that lead to workplace conflict.
Development of positive workplace relationships- by allowing employees to interact with each other comfortably. The creation of positive relationships can be achieved through the provision of social interaction opportunities regularly. Tasks can be assigned to create an interpersonal relationship among workers (Acas, 2006, p11-16). Also, cross-training of employees is of significance in the creation of new relationships.
Implementation of team building activities- can improve employee relationships through the team development process. The team building activities allow team members to be more comfortable while collaborating. In the process, they identify the interaction modes, acceptable behaviors, and teamwork conflict solving mechanisms.
The creation of a conducive collaborative environment is another technique of resolving conflicts in organizations. A collaborative environment can be promoted through employee workplace participation programs such as suggestion system and self-directed teams.
Finally, fair employee treatment avoids the preferential treatment of employees by some mangers. Conflict can arise due to preferential employee treatment by the management. The appearance of preferential treatment can even create conflict.
Reference list
Acts, 2006. Managing conflict at work.